“My dad loved my mom for 56 years,” said Lesley Cawthorne, the couple’s daughter, from her home in Norwich. “He loved her completely. From beginning to end, when she was so sick and in such pain, he treated her with kindness, love and compassion. “All we want is to bring him home.” The battle to do so intensifies on Monday, when Hunter, a former Northumberland miner, is expelled from Nicosia Central Prison in Paphos, the southern resort where he and his wife first sought “dream life”. »Abroad. There, before a criminal court, he will relive the events of the night of December 18, events that his lawyers say amount to “assisted suicide”, but which, in a nation heavily influenced by the Greek Orthodox Church, have caused concern. even if they have also helped lift the veil on an issue that has long been considered taboo: euthanasia. For months, Cawthorne said, her father resisted calls from her cancer-stricken mother to stop what had become excruciating physical pain. Janice Hunter was diagnosed with leukemia in 2016 and her health deteriorated after the outbreak of the pandemic. Difficulties in accessing treatments combined with persistent diarrhea and the gradual loss of vision had made life unbearable. Fearing the same fate as her sister, Kathleen, who suffered a painful and unfortunate death from the same disease, Janice asked for an end to her suffering, said Kauthorn, a financial compliance consultant. A week before Christmas, as his wife was sitting in her favorite armchair in a room full of decorations, Hunter acted: he took his wife’s head in his hands and, according to police, closed her airways until she became act. The seventy-year-old then tried to commit suicide by overdosing on prescription pills and alcohol. When authorities arrived – alerted by Hunter’s brother – they found the former miner barely alive in their Tremithous maisonette on the hills above Paphos. Janice was dead in her white leather chair. For days, doctors pumped Hunter’s stomach against his will, until the Briton fully regained consciousness. When he did come, he knew that the momentary decision, motivated by a supposed act of love, had changed his life forever. But Derek Wickett, the couple’s neighbor, is sure of one thing. “They were thinking of each other’s world,” said the mild-mannered Midlander, who also retired to Cyprus after 40 years at the Fort Dunlop tire factory in Birmingham. “You would hear Janice singing. she loved her vegetable garden, “he told the Observer, scratching his head against the wall between the maisonettes. “Then suddenly no song was heard. It hurt so much that he could not get out. It was awful how it ended. “We just hope they can bring David home.” Hunter’s lawyers have appealed to the Attorney General, the top legal official in the former British colony, to intervene in what is the first case of its kind in Cyprus. In a context of opposition from the Orthodox Church and a debate in parliament on the legalization of euthanasia, the defense team has called for the charge of assisted suicide to be reduced under legislation elsewhere in Europe. On Friday the request was rejected. “We have collected lengthy submissions based on laws and instructions from other jurisdictions that explain why the murder prosecution is inappropriate in the circumstances of this case,” said Michael Pollack, a lawyer with the London-based Justice Abroad legal aid team. “These observations have been rejected, but no reason has been given in the letter for this reasoning.” The lawyers said they would continue to ask the prosecutor to make an “initial decision” so that David Hunter could return to the United Kingdom. At Ollie’s, a family-run pub near the Palm Tree where the Hunters once lived, expatriates were reluctant to talk about a case that has clearly hit the community hard. But genuine affection and respect for the Hunters was not insufficient. “They were very good people,” said Petros Christofi, who chairs the 1,300-strong Tremithousa community and rented the maisonette to the couple after they sold their Paphos apartment to pay for Janice’s healthcare. “Ask Father Michael in the church, ask anyone here. “Everyone liked them.” With a heavy heart, Christofi said, he had testified to the police the night he died. “It is clear that he suffered. It is clear that it hurt. “It’s clear that this was not a murder and it’s clear that our laws need to change.” A wooden cross marks the slope of the hill where Janis is buried. A jug full of flowers and bouquets are spread out on the freshest grave in the cemetery full of foreign names. “Dad is obsessed with the idea of having to visit mom’s grave,” said Cawthorne, 49, who said her heart condition prevented her from traveling to Cyprus. “He feels that he is indecent and disrespectful that he failed to go. It was impossible to mourn for mom. All we want is compassion. “We need Dad at home to mourn together.”
